GODZILLA 2000

After the release of "Godzilla VS Destoroyah”,Toho thought it was time to put the series to rest until the 50th anniversary of the first and classic Godzilla film from 1954, thus ending the Second Era of Godzilla films.  However, Toho allowed "TriStar" to make a few American Godzilla films in the meantime, and what we got was the crappy 98 film that doesn't deserve to be called "Godzilla" for how much it strains away from the character. The response from critics and fans was so poor (and yet somehow still leading to an animated TV series based on the film) "TriStar" cancelled making any other future Godzilla films, resulting with Toho to create another Godzilla film and release it to American theaters so modern audiences can get to see who Godzilla truly is. That film is...

"GODZILLA 2000"

 

This film started the third and last full Era of Godzilla films known as the "Millennium Era", and as I promised in my review for the previous official Godzilla movie, I'm going to review the final full era of Godzilla films. Now aside from Godzilla fans and American audiences getting an actual Godzilla film to make up for the sins of America's attempt, is the film itself good, or is it really just a half-baked film that's only made to just wheel fans in, knowing that they'll pay to see any Godzilla movie from Japan after watching a disgrace of a giant monster icon? ON WITH THE REVIEW!

The Godzilla Production Network led by Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his 12 year old daughter Lo (Mayu Suzuki) are joined by photojournalist Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida) so that she can get a story as she watches them predict where Godzilla is, and study him. But they are rivaled by "Crisis Control Intelligence" led by an old partner of Yuji, Mitsuo Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe) who wants to destroy Godzilla for the chaos he causes. However, in an unexpected turn of events, a strange meteorite is found at the bottom of the ocean, and seems to have a will of its own by being able to float and flying itself around. It turns out that the meteor is actually an alien Spaceship and creates a giant monster named Orga to take over the world.

The film's setting ignores all continuity of the previous films, and I assume that it counts the classic 1954 film as well, since there's no mention of the events of that film at all. And I would be fine with it and admire that the film wants to be its own thing when regarding the failed continuity from the last two Eras, but the problem I have with it is, it never establishes who Godzilla is, where he came from, or how long he's been roaming around Japan, which makes it confusing for newcomers. I'm not saying that there should be an origins story or some sort of big build up to him, but it would be nice if we knew a little more from the very little that the film gives us.

When the film began I'm glad that it didn't waste any time at slowly revealing Godzilla. Much like in "Godzilla VS. Destoroyah" when we only had a few short minutes before Godzilla shows up, the film does the same exact thing by giving him a spectacular entrance. The research team is getting signals of his presence, when meanwhile a guy working in a lighthouse has heard no word from an overdue fishing vessel, until suddenly the office shakes, and he looks out the window to see the damaged ship floating in midair, revealing it to be in the jaws of Godzilla. Godzilla does his iconic roar when we get a close up at one of his eyes and BOOM the title appears, that’s then followed by a scene of Godzilla destroying a few buildings. It's one of Godzilla's best entrances in film. Godzilla's design looks similar to his previous designs, but Toho managed to make him look a little different by giving him dark green skin, and multiple dorsal plates that are bigger than ever, and have a little color to them, instead of being white. It’s a great design and costume for the new Godzilla. The only downer to Godzilla is his character. In most of the films in the "Showa Era", he was portrayed as a neutral hero.  And in the "Heisei Era" he was portrayed as a giant animal that was vicious like one, but still had a gentle side. In this film, he does appear to have a mind of his own by taking vengeance on humanity by destroying sources of energy for...reasons (it's not quite fully explained), and coming after the guy who's been trying to kill him. But aside from that, we don't feel or get a complete understanding of his motivation and character. The characteristics just feel there to be there, rather than providing audiences something fascinating about this monster for us to explore.

 

The reason why we don't get too much of Godzilla's character is because the film is more focused on the humans (I'll save them for last), and the build-up to the monster that Godzilla is going to fight. When American audiences went into the film, many never suspected that Godzilla was going to fight against another monster (though in the American poster, there are evil eyes behind Godzilla, obviously indicating that he is going to face another monster). And I admire that Toho decided to create a new monster for Godzilla to fight against instead of bringing back one of their original monsters to play things safe when coming off the heels of a bad interpretation to the character. The build-up towards the monster does go on for so long that we don't see him appear until the last 15 or so minutes of the movie. But we still get to see it go from a meteor that has a will of its own, to a spaceship that hacks the computers and fights back. And as I was watching this build-up I can only imagine the tension and excitement that audiences at the time were feeling of who the alien is, only to be shocked to see the alien turn into a giant monster before their very eyes. The design for Orga is another threatening and unique design from Toho, like all their other classic monsters. He's like a combination between the classic Godzilla and even a bit of the 98 Godzilla (I don’t quite understand why), with a little bit of the designs of a gremlin, a troll, the Alien, and Biollante. The powers that the monster possesses also prove to be very deadly towards Gozilla and humanity since he's made out of Godzilla's cells (like Biollante). He can heal himself after being injured, control the spaceship to help assist him in his fight, has a shoulder cannon to fire at Godzilla, and can swallow Godzilla's head like a snake, that also helps him absorb Godzilla's DNA so that he can become the new one!

But as powerful as Orga is, and as awesome as Godzilla looks, the fight scenes sadly aren't as great. I was on the edge of my seat to know what was going to happen for how deadly Orga is, but there was little to no awe moments that made me cheer for how cool the fighting was. They mostly just awkwardly hit each other here and there, which gets pretty tedious after a while, and we don't have intense music or booming sound effects when they hit and destroy stuff to help make this fight at least sound cool. I know the American Cut fixed those mistakes, which I hear is a much better film than this (that I may check out in the future). But right now I'm just focusing on its original cut, and what we got is very quiet action that doesn't feel exciting. And honestly neither is the other scenes involving Godzilla in the movie. When the army attacks him, Godzilla just stands there taking all of the abuse and barley gets a chance to attack them. And when Godzilla rampages through the city, though shot and lit well, no one dies since it's mostly played for laughs.

On a special effects level, we get some of the best in a Godzilla movie, and some of the absolute worst. Starting off with the positive ones, everything regarding the monsters fighting and destroying stuff is all shot very well by making them look gigantic than guys in rubber suits destroying models, as we get some pretty neat angles, and lighting effects. The models themselves are also well detailed to the point where you can see some furniture inside of the buildings to make them feel real, when in other films we never witness furniture spilling out of the buildings (which never really bothered me, but it’s still an overall nice improvement none the less). And the suits themselves look fantastic, along with their great designs. So all the practicals look great if not perfect, but the other effects aren't. Most of the green-screen effects look very off, though I can't say the other films aren't as guilty. But the WORST EFFECT in the whole movie is the use of CGI! This the first Toho Godzilla film to have Godzilla in full CGI in some scenes, and as much as I dismiss the 98 film, this film makes the CGI effects in the American film look Oscar worthy. MY GOD do they look terrible! Sometimes they'll look like graphics for PlayStation game, or a computer game, like the scene when we see the missiles go under a bridge to hit Godzilla. But most of the time they'll look as poor as the CGI used for "The Langoliers” and the aliens in the music video "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 65. Scenes like the UFO flying around, the alien morphing into Orga, and the infamous shot of Godzilla swimming underwater never looked real for how computerized they are. Maybe they would look real for a video game, but far from a movie. The only CGI effects that look as phenomenal as the practicals are when Godzilla breaths out his atomic breath that makes his Spikes glow. And I mean that too! This the most realistic looking effect for Godzilla's atomic that I've ever seen, from the way it smokes and sparks with such bright colors! I'm sure the opticals used for his atomic breath in the past looked cool and realistic for its time, but this was definitely an upgrade!

Now in the past we've seen Toho rip-off other movies like 007 in the "Showa Era", and "The Terminator" in the "Heisei Era" for example. But in this film, the film rips-off not one, not two, but over 5 movies and the iconic scenes from them. For starters, the set-up involving a Godzilla research team that predicts when he's going to strike and start chasing after him for research, as they go against a rival who's doing it for "the wrong reasons”, sounds an awful lot like the plot for "Twister", except that we get Godzilla taking the place of a tornado. Also the concept of people finding a meteor that's revealed to be a UFO is taken directly from the 1953 "War of the Worlds". The film even rips-off a famous scene from a Roland Emmerich movie (the guy who directed the 98 Godzilla) "Independence Day" by having the UFO hovering over a building and blasting it that is far from cool unlike how the original film pulled it off. And here's the crazy part, you know how Toho made this film in response to the 98 film, well guess what...they RIP-OFF a few scenes from that movie as well. The shot of Godzilla swimming underwater towards the camera; a guy almost being killed by falling ruble and survives by luck; Godzilla appearing with something in its mouth for the first time we see him; the shot when a lead character stands in one of his foot prints, those are all scenes ripped straight from the 98 film! Even the image with Godzilla's eye when the title appears looks exactly like the poster for the 98 film. And you know how the 98 film ripped things off from the "Jurassic Park" films, this film rips off the tunnel chase scene from the 98 film that ripped-off the chase from "Jurassic Park" with the T-Rex, only Toho decided to have the characters in a JEEP drive away from Godzilla, after when one of the character's flashes a light into Godzilla's eyes, like how Lex did when she was stunned by the T-Rex. These could be homages to other films, but I highly doubt it for how similar these ideas and scenes play-out to the other movies that don't feel fresh and new. Though I still enjoy Godzilla’s entrance in the film, that was at least the closest that Toho got to using an original idea in their own way.

As I said earlier, half of the film is dedicated to the build-up to Orga, while the other half is dedicated to the characters, as Godzilla is given only a couple of scenes before the final battle that’s similar to the later 2014 film, only with a better monster and no fake-outs (though the fighting wasn't all that great). And the characters, despite their motivation being similar to the characters in "Twister", I can honestly say that I enjoyed spending time with them. The chemistry that the actors have together is just wonderful! You do indeed feel that strong connection between them all for how they beautifully play off each other’s emotions. You get a strong sense of Yuji's determination to study Godzilla to help humanity just like the Professor in the first film, as well as sympathizing with him when knowing that the only person he has is his 12 year old daughter that he cares so much about, despite taking her to near death scenarios. I admire that the daughter herself isn't playing herself out as a cutesy child who gets kidnapped where her only purpose is to attract the younger crowd. No, she's intelligent, helpful, and never gets captured or into danger that involves the characters saving her; though I do find it slightly annoying that they made her too perfect for making her act way too mature for her age. They give her moments for her to behave like a kid, but for the majority of her screen-time, she acts more like an adult than a kid. The reporter Yuki is a typical archetype that we've been constantly seeing in a large amount of Godzilla films, but I did find her relationship with the team to be interesting for how strange and new it is for her, who's at first opposed by the dangers they get into and how weird they are, too slowly warming up to them as time goes by and taking a few risks herself willingly.



The only serious problem that I have with the characters is their rival. You know how in the first film  there was really no right or wrong side of either killing or studying Godzilla since that was all up for moral debate. Well in this film, the side that wants to destroy Godzilla is treated like villains, instead of having you feel torn between both. Ok, the guy that work's for the head of the team that wants to destroy Godzilla is treated as an actual person who struggles between both sides. He has a personal connection with Yuji from the years that they worked at the University together before splitting, but he will still regrettably carry out deeds for his boss since he believes that Godzilla must be stopped. I wish the others on the opposing side were just as down to earth and conflicted as him, but that's not the case. The leader is your typical one dimensional Godzilla human baddie just minus the enjoyment. His reasons are as legit as the main character’s reasons of wanting to study him, but the film wants to make destroying Godzilla to be a bad thing since the film wants you to side with Yuji and the gang for how (mostly) normal they act, as this guy smiles evilly, is shown to be in the shadows looking serious on numerous occasions, and even tries to kill one of the characters without showing any kind of remorse. If things regarding the opposing side can't get any worse, the side that the film wants us to fully support revolves around a message of tampering with nature. The concept isn't bad, I do like that the human's want to use Godzilla's cells to help them live as long as Godzilla, only to discover that Godzilla's foe is using it for evil. But the speech they give at the end is so preachy, corny, and pretentious that it's silly. We don't need to be spoon fed this message through such sappy dialogue; we can easily make-out the message for ourselves.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

As an attempt for Toho to give American audiences an actual Godzilla film, it does its job fine; but when coming off the heels of a great if not perfect Godzilla movie that ended the "Heisei Era" beautifully, it takes plenty of steps backwards. Unlike the first film of the "Heisei Era" "The Return of Godzilla" that took a few steps forwards, despite being a rather dull and slow moving film. This film does the opposite. It does entertain you by keeping your interest through the characters, the build-up to Orga, and the easy to follow plot, while giving you an imaginative and threatening new monster for Godzilla to fight against, and some of the greatest use of practicals to ever be used in a Godzilla film. But the fighting and action scenes are tedious (though having their moments), the score and sound effects are very lackluster, the CGI effects (except for Godzilla's atomic breath) are horrendous, the film rips-off so many other movies including the infamous 98 Godzilla film that it gets shameful, the mythos of Godzilla in this new series is confusing and never explored, and above all I HATE how they make the sides of studying and destroying Godzilla so black and white! It's not a bad or great Godzilla film, it’s really just as average as the many others that I reviewed, but still in the end comes off as a fairly entertaining flick.